John Williams

John Williams (29 January 1778-10 August 1837) was the US Senator from Tennessee from 10 October 1815 to 4 March 1823, succeeding Jesse Wharton and preceding Andrew Jackson.

Biography
John Williams was born in Forsyth County, North Carolina in 1778, the brother of congressmen Lewis Williams and Robert Williams and the cousin of Marmaduke Williams. He became a Tennessee lawyer in 1803 after serving as a US Army captain from 1799 to 1800, and he served as Attorney General of Tennessee from 1807 to 1808. Williams raised a company of 250 volunteers during the War of 1812 and took part in an 1813 invasion of Spanish Florida, razing several Seminole villages. Williams then served as a US Army colonel under Andrew Jackson, fighting against the Muscogee in the American South. In 1815, he was chosen to fill Jesse Wharton's vacant seat in the US Senate as a Democratic-Republican Party member, supporting the establishment of the second national bank and opposing Jackson in politics. He voted for the 1820 Missouri Compromise, put forth by Henry Clay, and he gained the support of Davy Crockett when Jackson tried to run for Williams' Senate seat in 1823. Jackson beat Williams 35 to 25 at a meeting of the state legislature, and he was nearly appointed Secretary of War in the John Quincy Adams administration, had it not been for Clay suggesting that someone from New York should be chosen instead. Williams died in Knoxville, Tennessee in 1837 at the age of 59.